Cover bands are essential works. They refresh the global musical canon by returning recorded music to live performance, ensuring that American music remains a living vernacular rather than a museum artifact. Cover bands project a durable image of America as energetic, improvisational and rhythmically irresistible—long after the original recordings recede. The competition for dominance in artificial intelligence may be unsettled, but the competition for cultural influence that AI seeks to amplify was won long ago—in the melodies, rhythms and energy of the American Songbook.
No way we’re going back.
Brittannica | Foxes and Fossils
